


In A World Without Windows

by Dancing_Adrift



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, POV Dean, Random & Short, the bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancing_Adrift/pseuds/Dancing_Adrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's thoughts about the bunker and what it's like to live in a place that has no windows.<br/>Set anytime after 9.04 "Slumber Party."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A World Without Windows

The bunker was _awesome_.

Dean thought, perhaps, that was the understatement of the year. The bunker had _everything_. There were entire worlds contained within its cement walls that had never before been available to the Winchester brothers. Most notably, it was a safe place to call home - always waiting for them to return to at the end of the day - a very rare thing in the life of hunters. Also, separate, _private_ bedrooms were a true first. There was memory foam, for crying out loud! Not to mention all the amazing amenities, from the fully-equipped kitchen, to the all-out Men of Letters _war room_ and library...the firing range...the hidden dungeon...the garage… Hell, the bunker even contained a portal to the not-as-fictional-as-previously-thought world of freaking _Oz_.

And who knew what other secrets were tucked away in the extensive halls. It seemed like every day they stayed there, they discovered something new. They _still_ hadn’t explored every room, not really at least. They’d done a cursory run-through initially, just for safety’s sake, of course, but the bunker at large remained a space full of mystery. It really was their Batcave though - the only thing missing was their very own Alfred...and Bruce Wayne’s endless wealth. They could only be _so_ lucky.

Actually, there was one more feature the bunker was lacking - windows. There were no windows in the entire structure. This, of course, made perfect sense, considering that everything but the limited entrances was buried deep underground. Plus, windows would add a level of vulnerability that a safe-house of such magnitude could ill afford.

Even so, Dean felt their absence quite acutely some days. Days when they didn’t have _any_ cases to research, days when _all_ they did was research...days, nights - they all blended together. That was the first thing that bugged Dean about the window shortage - he never knew what time of day or night it was. Not that it had ever been an overly important detail in the grand scheme of his life, but it could be rather disorienting to look up at a clock or down at his watch and have no idea whether it was AM or PM. Thank goodness they still - inexplicably - had decent cell service or he’d constantly be in a fuzzy, timeless state.

The lack of windows sometimes made Dean feel a little claustrophobic, too. Some days, it could feel like the walls were closing in on him, even in the largest of rooms. He supposed this was probably a result of life on the road. Having spent the vast majority of his time on wide open highways - and in a beast of a car as spacious as his Baby - any windowless room was bound to be a bit suffocating if he remained inside for too long.

Dean knew that windows weren’t always a good thing though. In fact, sometimes they could be downright dangerous. He recalled bitterly the incident with the Shtriga when he and Sam were younger - how the monster had accessed Sammy’s room via an open window, and Dean had nearly lost his brother to an endless coma, prevented only by their father’s timely arrival. He remembered anew the paralyzing fear of not having been able to protect his brother in that moment, and how they had almost failed to stop the same thing from happening to other kids in Wisconsin, years later. No, he thought with a shudder, windows weren’t always a desirable feature, _especially_ not in the world of hunters. All entrances to _any_ room always had to be carefully lined with salt, no matter how safe their location was perceived to be, and all curtains were always to be tightly shut. So, even when Dean had been inside windowed rooms, his job (and his life) probably would have been much easier if they’d just not existed at all.

Even knowing the logistics behind the added safety of windowless interiors, Dean couldn’t help missing them sometimes. He remembered (or at least he _thought_ he remembered) back to when they still lived in the big house in Lawrence - before he had any clue that there was _too_ much truth to the monsters under his bed - back when his family was still whole. Their home had been smattered with large, beautiful windows in nearly every room, displaying wide open views in every direction of their expansive yard and all the neighboring houses.

He could still remember the excitement in the late fall of waking up and looking out his bedroom window to see the ground outside covered in the fresh dusting of the first snow. Or earlier in the fall when he’d glance out from his high-chair at the dining room table to see squirrels gathering acorns amongst the trees with their color-changing foliage. Or around Christmas time, how he used to love sitting on the couch in the living room, gazing wide-eyed out the big picture window at the brilliant lights displays of their overly competitive neighbors. There was also the vague memory of the soft sound of rain splattering against the panes of his bedroom window, lulling him to sleep on stormy summer nights. He knew these were little, inconsequential memories, but they harkened back to a period of his life when he was nothing but happy - the only time in his life that he’d been afforded the innocence of youth - until that fateful night when the yellow-eyed demon came and destroyed his home and his family. The death of his mother, the corruption of his baby brother, and the thirst for vengeance instilled in him by his father - these were the things that put him on the path towards a windowless future. 

******************************

Dean shook his head to clear his mind of such random, melancholic thoughts. Sam sat across from him at the large table in the main room of the bunker, his head buried in some massive Men of Letters text or another. Dean smiled fondly at his not-so-baby brother; even with all the shit they’d been through, Sam - though by no means unscathed - somehow had managed to grow into an incredible young man. A man of whom, without question, Dean was immensely proud.

Sam must have felt his gaze on him, because he looked up from his book, blinking and glancing briefly around the room before meeting Dean’s eyes.

“What?” Sam half-grunted, eyes not leaving Dean’s, but a small furrow formed between his brows as he questioned his brother’s unprompted scrutiny. Dean just shrugged.

“Nuthin’. Just thinkin’ about how this place has no windows, so I’m stuck lookin’ at your ugly mug all day,” he teased, kicking at his brother’s leg underneath the table, keeping his mouth in a steady line, but unable to keep the corners of his eyes from crinkling.

Sam just moved his legs out of reach, rolled his eyes, and went back to his reading, perfectly content to ignore the antics of his older brother. Dean let himself indulge in a wide grin then, not discouraged in the slightest by Sam’s unwillingness to acknowledge the playful insult. As his brother became once again engrossed in whatever subject was contained within the mighty tome, Dean leaned back in his chair, the smile lingering in his features. Yeah, he ruminated, their sweet new digs may not have any views of the outdoors, and they were pretty much completely cut off from the outside world, which could be unsettling and lonely at times, but the trade off - a safe place where he and Sammy could live their crazy lives in relative peace, with more resources available to them than they’d ever had before (and don’t forget the memory foam!) - _that_ made living in a world without windows _completely_ worth it.

  
~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [non_tiembo_mala](http://archiveofourown.org/users/non_tiembo_mala/pseuds/non_tiembo_mala) for grammar edits and input - I always love writing with you. <3
> 
> Any feedback is much appreciated! Thank you for reading! :)


End file.
